To Disobey. Part 1

A film by Patricio Henriquez

They form but a small minority. One percent. Ten out of a thousand. They dared to defy military authority and discipline. They deliberately went against orders.

They weren’t drafted into the armed forces: they volunteered. They believed in honour and in the values held by the military.

Then, in the middle of a conflict, they were ordered to torture, to kill unarmed civilians, to rape or to have helpless women raped. They were instructed to hide the evidence of their crimes in the interest of their Nation. And they were told to keep quiet to protect their brothers in arms.

Igal Vega, an Israeli soldier, refused to fight against civilians. Efrain Jaña, a colonel in the Chilean army, disobeyed orders from General Pinochet in 1973. Camilo Mejia, an American veteran of the war in Iraq, was court-martialed for refusing further service in the “war for oil”, as he calls it.

The price they paid for remaining true to their convictions is more than they ever bargained for.